USE OR ABUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 102, 27 October 1938, Page 8

USE OR ABUSE

Some thought-provoking remarks regarding the problems -which have arisen from the inarch of science to the machine age were made by the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr. Parry) in ah address to physical training instructors yesterday. The Minister saw a danger of modern inventions, the radio in particular, making people physically lazy. He might have gone even further and pointed to the very real danger of people becoming mentally, as well as physically, lazy. Today there is a growing tendency to turn to the wireless set not only for entertainment, but for education. No one can doubt the value of broadcasting as an educational force, but it loses much of its value, and even becomes a danger, when it is allowed to distract people from all other channels of information. Too close an application to the radio may discourage people to think for themselves and may lead ultimately, as 'Mir Parry mentioned, to the whole of their outlook being determined by the mass. In the case of children in particular the machine age holds out dangers. In a home in which the radio is switched on from early morning until late at night the child is offered readymade entertainment and ready-made education, not always of the most desirable kind, which cannot but distract it from pursuits which would prove more valuable1 as an approach to the realities pf life. The problem is a difficult one, and the responsi-j bility for its solution must rest very largely on parents. The main thing is to distinguish between the use and abuse of modern inventions.